


a picture's worth a thousand words

by pyrrhic_victory



Series: Good Omens Oneshots [3]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Established Relationship, Fluff, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Insecure Aziraphale (Good Omens), M/M, Soft Aziraphale (Good Omens), Soft Crowley (Good Omens), extremely mild hurt/comfort though, they're both confused and soft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-03
Updated: 2019-08-03
Packaged: 2020-07-30 09:13:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,325
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20094850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pyrrhic_victory/pseuds/pyrrhic_victory
Summary: He loves Aziraphale when he frowns at him over a book, and when he complains about going too fast in the car, and when he drinks a bit too much and starts rambling about St John. But he really, really loves Aziraphale when Aziraphale really, really loves things. He lights up, he overflows with the stuff, and it’s at these moments that he can almost see his celestial form leak through at the edges.or; Crowley takes Aziraphale to the National Gallery and submits to the mortifying ordeal of trying to compliment him.





	a picture's worth a thousand words

**Author's Note:**

> just something short, soft and sappy to make myself feel better today.

Crowley strides into the bookshop one afternoon, and, as is to be expected on a good day, there are absolutely no customers in it. 

“Crowley!” Aziraphale beams at him from behind the desk and gets up to give him a kiss. It’s been a few months since Armageddon, and they’ve finally got around to doing what they’ve been staring at each other and dreaming of doing for millennia. Aziraphale is warm and soft and when they separate, he stands there looking at Crowley with an adoring look. 

Crowley never quite knows how to handle that. “What?” 

“I haven’t been in a position to do so before, but now that I am, I simply must tell you how handsome I’ve always found you,” he says, almost in awe as he blinks up at Crowley, who suddenly doesn’t know what to do with himself at all. 

He stammers a bit, and a weak, “you have?” is all that comes out. 

“Of course.” And now Aziraphale’s hands are on either side of his face. His thumbs trace along his cheekbones and jaw like he’s memorising the feeling, like he’s dreamed of doing so. He glances about to check for customers and then gently lifts Crowley’s sunglasses off. “I thought about it quite a bit, after Eden. They sent a handsome demon with the most beautiful eyes to tempt me.”

The words settle warmly into him like nothing else ever has. It’s one thing for a human to comment on his looks. He’ll accept it, but he doesn’t really take much notice. But for Aziraphale? The most perfectly imperfect, celestial, radiant person he’s ever met? He can’t fathom it. Aziraphale likes his eyes. He doesn’t just tolerate them, he likes them. He thinks they’re _ beautiful _. 

“Just to tempt you, eh?” Crowley grins. “Nothing else going on the Garden that day?”

“Oh, be quiet.” Aziraphale slides back behind the desk, and shoots him another loving look out of the corner of his eye that almost floors him. He’s so unused to all this, to Aziraphale’s open, unguarded affection, that all he can do is bask in it and pray that it never ends. 

“Did it work?” Crowley drapes himself over the desk so he ends up nose to nose him. “Were you _ tempted _?”

“Foul fiend,” Aziraphale tuts, and smacks him on the nose with a leaflet from 1823. 

“Want to go somewhere?” Crowley leans back and asks. It’s only one o’clock, but it’s not as though Aziraphale wants to keep to ordinary opening hours. People might get ideas about being customers. Customers might get ideas about purchasing books. And not just any books; Aziraphale’s books. 

“Well, I did hear they’re putting on a new exhibition at the National Gallery,” Aziraphale says, tilting his head in that way he does when he’s hinting very obviously at something he wants. “Though I suppose you‘d find it terribly dull.” 

Crowley sighs and gives in, as they both knew he would. “Rubbish. Love a good painting, me. Come on, then.” 

The paintings themselves are not exactly exciting, but listening to Aziraphale is. He follows him around and listens as he points out all the artists he knows and enthuses about the colour and the light. And then he gets very excited and starts talking about symbolism and imagery and metaphors, which he’s really started to get into since the invention of literary criticism, and Crowley listens some more. He loves Aziraphale when he frowns at him over a book, and when he complains about going too fast in the car, and when he drinks a bit too much and starts rambling about St John. But he really, really loves Aziraphale when Aziraphale really, really loves things. He lights up, he overflows with the stuff, and it’s at these moments that he can see his celestial form almost leak through at the edges. He’s radiant. 

They pass a painting of a woman with flowing red hair, and Aziraphale glances at him. 

“Are you sure you never met Rossetti?”

“Not every picture of some miserable-looking bugger with red hair is me, you know.” 

“I like to think they are. It makes me enjoy them a little more,” he winks. Crowley rolls his eyes but smiles anyway. There’s a painting of an angel up ahead. White robes, white wings, blonde hair. He nods to it. 

“Familiar?” 

”Not every painting of an angel is of me, my dear.” 

“I like to think they are,” Crowley says, leaning close enough to smell the holiness on him. It smells a lot like cocoa. “But none of them get it quite right.” 

“Obviously. I’d never be seen dead with my hair like that.” Aziraphale huffs at the angel’s long, flowing curls. Crowley snorts at the sight he’d make with that hair. He’s meant to be exactly as he is, with his fluffy white hair sticking up like a halo. 

“And none of them look as good as you, of course,” he adds, since he’s allowed to say things like that now. He’s been waiting about six thousand years for it to be acceptable conversation, and now Aziraphale has complimented his eyes, it’s opened the floodgates for Crowley to come out with all sorts of sappy nonsense as well. Well, only on special occasions. He is a demon, after all. (It just so happens that most occasions with Aziraphale are special.)

Aziraphale doesn’t say anything for a moment. He’s gone very still, staring at Crowley with his eyes wide. Crowley feels the flirtatious smile fall off his face in an instant.

“Angel?” Maybe he’s said something very wrong. Maybe Aziraphale is still worried about being Good, about Falling. “I meant- I only meant they’re not as pretty as you, that’s all. You know demons don’t get a lot of practise at proper flirting.” 

He expected- well, he doesn’t know what he expected. He hoped Aziraphale might blush and do that dazzling smile he does when Crowley does something nice for him, or give him that suspicious frown he does when Crowley is being a little too demonic. But instead, he looks like he’s about to cry with shock. 

“You can’t mean that,” Aziraphale says, in an uncertain, fragile voice. Other people wander into their part of the exhibition and he clicks his fingers so they’ll decide to get some badly priced coffee in the cafe instead. 

“Course I can. No angel slapped together by some depressed opiate addict with a paintbrush is going to look half as nice as you,” Crowley says. He’s trying to keep his tone light because he still doesn’t know what he’s done wrong. His brain short-circuits for a minute and wonders if he _ has _Fallen and that’s why he’s so upset at being called good, but no. That would probably be a bit more obvious than quiet, teary eyes in a gallery. 

“Oh-“ Aziraphale is suddenly in his arms, pressing his face into his shoulder and he‘s shaking and what on Earth has he done? Crowley closes his arms gently around him, keeps one hand on his back and the other in his soft hair. He’s completely lost. 

It’s a few minutes before Aziraphale finally raises his head and looks up at Crowley. His face is damp and a bit blotchy, and his eyes are red. He smiles a little awkwardly and fumbles around in his pockets. 

“I’m terribly sorry,” he says, his voice still a bit raw. He blows into his handkerchief - because of course he still has one in the 21st century - and crumples it up. “I really don’t know what came over me.”

“Whatever I did, just tell me and I’ll never do it again.” 

“No, no. Please, my dear. It isn’t your fault. I just wasn’t expecting it, that’s all.” 

“Right,” Crowley says, still feeling like this is very much his fault. 

“You’ve always been the good-looking one, you see. I’m lucky that I get to look at you. I never expected anything more than that.” 

“What are you on about?” Crowley finds himself asking. It probably comes out a bit harsher than he meant it to, but Aziraphale just chuckles wetly. “I mean it. What on Earth is that all about? I’m the good-looking one? Since when? You’re an angel.” 

“Not a very good one,” Aziraphale points out. He feels a sudden rush of sadness, and just a pinch of anger at Heaven. The other angels are a bunch of sanctimonious, self-righteous bastards who’ve brainwashed Aziraphale into thinking he’s worthless. 

“You really don’t see it,” Crowley says. Aziraphale has turned back to the painting now, but he’s dabbing at his eyes rather than actually looking at it. 

“It’s a painting of an angel, dear.”

“Not that.”

“Hmm?” Aziraphale glances over and Crowley just has to reach for him again. He puts both hands on his shoulders and pulls him closer, makes sure he’s looking right at him. 

“How can you not see it? I mean, you’re- you’re-“ he doesn’t even know how to explain what he sees when he sees Aziraphale. “You’re you,” he settles on, a bit lamely. The angel raises his eyebrows and looks like he’s about to make some sort of witty retort, so Crowley keeps talking. “You’re all- ugh, I’m awful at this.” 

“You’re wonderful, Crowley.” 

“Stop being nice. I’m meant to be saying that.” 

“You don’t have to say anything,” Aziraphale says, and leans over to kiss him. Crowley can still feel the tears on his cheeks and in his lashes when he blinks. 

“I clearly do. I mean, have you never looked in a mirror?” 

“I don’t make a habit of it. Vanity is a sin, you know,” Aziraphale says with a haughty sniff, but Crowley knows it’s more because he feels he ought to than because he’s ever actually worried about looking vain. Not with the amount of care he puts into his suits. 

“So is getting dirty with a demon, and yet here you are.” 

“Don’t be vulgar.” 

“Don’t be sanctimonious. I’m trying to tell you that you’re-“ he can’t find the right word. There’s so many that could work but just feel tawdry when he thinks about applying them to Aziraphale. He’s just so good in a way he can’t vocalise, in a way none of Heaven ever has been. 

“Nobody’s ever said anything so nice to me, you know.” Aziraphale lifts his hands to trace Crowley’s face like he did back at the bookshop. He says it so appreciatively that it just makes him sad. Why, in six thousand years, has nobody thought to tell Aziraphale that he’s a star in almost-human form? Maybe for the same reason as him - everyone that sees him thinks it‘s so obvious that to mention it would be like pointing out the sky is blue.

“I’m not being nice. It’s just facts.” He groans again and looks around him for inspiration. If only he paid more attention to that awful love poetry Aziraphale seems to like. There’s a landscape painting on the other side of the corridor, made of white and yellow and soft, watery blue. He grabs Aziraphale’s hand and pulls him over to it. 

“Oh, Turner. How lovely,” Aziraphale smiles, fiddling with his handkerchief, and reads the little plaque beside it. “_ Norham Castle, Sunrise _.” 

“You like it?” 

“Oh, yes. I do have a soft spot for the Romantics,” Aziraphale leans closer and whispers, like it’s a dirty secret. 

Crowley points urgently at the painting. “That’s what you look like.” 

Aziraphale looks from him to the painting and back. “You think I look like a foggy castle with, um- a little dog in front of it? Or is that a horse, perhaps?” He leans closer and squints at it. 

“No, you-“ he tries not to roll his eyes again. “Forget the castle. And the little dog. Just look at it.” Aziraphale looks a little unsure, but does as instructed. It’s soft, and bright, and light, and it’s everything Crowley sees standing right next to him and can’t put into words. 

“Crowley...” Aziraphale is looking at him with a fragile expression that Crowley doesn’t feel like he deserves to see. “This painting is beautiful,” he cautiously says, like he isn’t sure Crowley’s noticed, and there must be some mistake, and he’s giving him an option to back out of it. 

“Yes, angel. It is.”

And then his arms are full of angel again. He’s not shaking this time, tightly onto Crowley’s jacket, and Crowley holds him as gently as he knows how. He’ll never get used to this, to being able to hold him whenever he wants, to comfort him and tell him everything he’s always wanted to say. 

“I didn’t mean to make you cry,” he awkwardly says, once Aziraphale has straightened up again. He’s giving him that look, the one so full of teary-eyed love Crowley doesn’t know what to do with himself. Aziraphale just smiles at him. 

“Would you complain awfully if I said something nice about you?” 

Crowley makes a show of sighing dramatically and glancing around the exhibit, because he knows Aziraphale will laugh at him. “I’ll let it slide, just this once. If you say it very, very quietly.” Aziraphale leans closer and tangles Crowley’s fingers in his. 

“You’re too good for me,” he says, close enough that Crowley can feel his breath on his cheek. “You always have been. I never thought I would deserve you. But when you say things like that...you have a way of making me feel important.”

“I didn’t say that much,” Crowley quietly says, because he doesn’t know what on Earth to say to something so serious as that. Of course he’s important, of course he deserves to be loved. Words like that are Aziraphale’s speciality, not his. 

“You did.” Aziraphale kisses him. He turns back to look at the painting, and leans gently against Crowley’s shoulder, keeping their hands together. “You said quite enough.”

_'Norham Castle, Sunrise' by JMW Turner, c.1845._

**Author's Note:**

> my au fic is long and angsty so i wanted to post something soft for a change. also, i can never get enough of projecting my insecurities onto celestial beings. - Alex


End file.
